NEW ZEALAND

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE,

(PROVINCE OF WELLINGTON).

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereto annexed, are to be considered as Official Communications made to those persons to whom they relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

HENRY BUNNY,
Provincial Secretary.

VOL. XVIII. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1871. No. 14

Speech of His Honor the Superintendent on Opening the Twenty-first Session of the Provincial Council.

Mr Speaker and Gentlemen of the Provincial Council:—In presuming the present session of the Provincial Council it will be unnecessary for me to do more than barely advert to the special circumstances under which I meet you. These will, I believe, be held by you to be sufficient to entitle me to receive an attentive and benevolent regard for the proposals I may make, and an earnest co-operation towards carrying them out. For many reasons I would have desired that a longer time might have intervened between the date of my election and that of the opening of the Council; in order that I might have had the opportunity of making myself personally acquainted with the present circumstances, wishes, and condition of different portions of the province; and also that I might have been able to give a more minute consideration to the proposals which I am about to submit for your approval.

The near approach, however, of the next session of the Parliament of the colony has precluded me from further entertaining such a wish; and I am the more reconciled to the disappointment when I reflect, on the one hand, that I have grown up with the earliest growth of the province and shared in almost every one of its struggles and enterprises, and so acquired an intimate knowledge of and sympathy with the work of the people in almost every walk of life; and on the other, that whilst I have no hesitation whatever as to the soundness of the general principles of the measures which I am about to introduce to your consideration, I can with the utmost confidence rely upon your supplying any omissions and amending any errors which a more careful review may suggest.

Within a few weeks I have had to form an Executive Council, and with the assistance of its members to agree upon a policy to present for your consideration and approval. I deem myself fortunate in having been able, under the circumstances, to secure the services of gentlemen who were at once capable of giving me valuable advice, and likely from their united influence to secure your confidence.

If I say that the present Provincial Government occupies no special platform and adopts no particular party cries, it is not because I have any wish to speak disparagingly of the employment of these, sometimes necessary, political formulæ; but rather because the present Provincial Government considers that pressing practical considerations demand its attention; and that the mind of the province ought not to be distracted by the consideration of mere theories of government from a dispassionate plain business view of all the circumstances which surround it and the difficulties of the situation. In placing, therefore, before you the actual condition of the Province, while it will be sufficiently apparent that its circumstances are temporarily embarrassed; yet, it will not consequently follow that the Provincial Government will invite you to lay the blame of the existing state of affairs altogether upon this or that person or party or system. It resolutely shuts its ears to recrimination; not merely because it is an unprofitable indulgence in itself—the resort of weak minds in distress—but also because it believes that the present state of things is not the consequence of any special fault or faults, but the natural result of development.

That, in fact, if it would be ridiculous to denounce parents because their offspring were attacked with measles or hooping-cough, and propose as a remedy to massacre the innocents, it would be no less unreasonable to impute particular blame because a young community had got into difficulties or despaired of its being restored to healthy action. The wise course in both instances is to avoid lamentation and adopt prompt remedial measures. It is in this spirit that the present Provincial Government accepts the situation.

The financial position of the province may be stated as follows, viz.:

• Funded debt... £259,000
• The interest and sinking fund on this amount is guaranteed by the Colonial Government